Large parts, such as components of an airframe of an aircraft, may weigh hundreds of pounds or more and may extend for tens or hundreds of feet. In order to perform work efficiently on such parts, the parts may be secured in place via one or more fixtures. However, fixtures for a large part necessarily mask off affixed portions of the part from view. This means that when a large part undergoes a surface treatment (e.g., painting), the masked portions of the part do not receive the surface treatment. To address this problem, current techniques for surface treatment require a part to be secured to a fixture, treated, dried, moved to another fixture that couples with different locations on the part, and then touched up. This is a highly labor-intensive process that consumes a great deal of time.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus that take into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as other possible issues.